Times are tense at the RNC, with police blanketing the city. While there have been some scattered incidents of violence-- I was able to determine 3 windows were smashed-- most of the incidents appear to be intimidation for intimidation's sake. One woman said how it seemed her city was occupied by an invading army. However, the 5-10,000 protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful, as videos show.

Then we had the illegal arrest of radio reporter Amy Goodman, who was arrested when she hurried to inquire about the arrest of two of her producers (who were bloodied and arrested as they covered other protest arrests). Her press credentials were ripped off by Secret Service men. You can also clearly hear on the YouTube video some offscreen man at 5 seconds shouting, "Get rid of that journalist now!" They then _pulled_ her across the police line and arrested her, then charged her with "obstructing justice" because she crossed the police line. You can see she came up to the police, stopped, and asked to speak to the man's superior. She was inquiring about her injured producers, not attempting any sort of illegal behavior.

What is sinister to me is not just this, and the preemptive raids that took place days before the convention began, but the lack of mainstream news about it. I watched the video last night, and with 535 comments and 20 simultaneous viewers (is that a YouTube max?) the number of views was fixed at 216. It was curious. Was YouTube "fixing" the views so it wouldn't pop up on the most-watched list? Today the count appears to be working normally. Here's the clip:

His own video of events earlier in the day (Update V) shows the state of the city under police siege. It's eerily quiet. I grew up there, and it's painful to see. What's also upsetting to me is the number of commenters, both on his blog and on YouTube, who vigorously defend the police action. Amy and the others "got what they deserved". I suppose these people want to live in a country where you can be arrested by inquiring after your injured staff members.

Anyway, I wanted to throw this out there and see what you all think. From my point of view, it looks simply awful-- a police state taking over. But a sanity check and feedback would be welcome. Thanks!

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All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

I believe Rage against the machine played there the other day in protest. I saw them at the reading fesival...they rocked. Their speeches about the George Bush administration would go down well there too.

I'd say both. There is a tiny minority that is causing trouble. That gives the police the excuse to act out of line, and earns them the "I'm only doing my job" sympathy vote. The violent idiots get me angry, because though their tiny contribution, the larger issues are being overlooked.

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All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

This is becoming an old story, unfortunately; a leftover from the days of the anti-globalization riots, and I suspect the reason why the media aren't interested: "What? Anarchists are hijacking another protest and looting again? Cover that? Nah; let's do more Madge instead."